The Partnership Approach
comments by Stephen Wynn on the consultation of the Home Office
Selective Admission: Making Migration Work for Britain ^x

1. The remit of the consultation

The first sentence on page 1 says:

"The purpose of this consultation exercise is to seek early input on a way forward for a new single points-based system for managed migration, i.e. routes to work, train or study in the UK."

The "new single points-based system" only refers to the "work" part of managed migration. The managed migration system divides into three parts: "short term", "employment categories", "family categories" (2.1).

"Migrate" means "move from one place of abode to another, especially in a different country". "Managed migration" of the Home Office refers to migration from outside the EU. But the consultation seems in places to be about migration in general rather than just managed migration: "Question 1: Do you agree that the benefits of migration outweigh its costs?", "Migration is vital for the economy." (1.2)

This submission is accordingly divided into, Part 1: Migration in general, Part 2: Managed migration. The former refers to a separate website: Britain Becoming Overcrowded.

2. "The Government have been trying to encourage immigration."

Peter Lilley MP said in the House of Commons debate on Wednesday, 23 March 2005 introducing his Immigration Control (Balanced Migration) Bill:

"My researches revealed that the Government have been trying to encourage immigration and have succeeded." ^x

This suggests that he did not realise that the government has been encouraging immigration until recently (2005), and that it was not been debated in Parliament.

"Tory leader Michael Howard said immigration had 'tripled under Mr Blair without any discussion, without any debate, without any real consultation.' ^x

I myself suspected that the government is encouraging immigration especially because of the expansion of the Work Permit scheme, and I became certain because of the The White Paper Secure Borders, Safe Haven (2002), ^x which says for example under the headings for Work Permits, Highly Skilled Migrants and Innovators:

"After 4 years in employment an application may be made for indefinite leave to remain in the UK." (page 116)

The application is optional. People from wealthier countries will tend to return home more than those from poorer countries. Therefore the system encourages immigration especially from poorer countries. The White Paper has a heading Trafficking Fraud Illegal Entry and People Trafficking

"22. At the heart of our challenges lie those who will take advantage of global movements to traffic or smuggle migrants."

According to whistleblower Steve Moxon author of The Great Immigration Scandal (Imprint Academic, 2004), overstaying is considerably more common than illegal entry. The White Paper does not mention "embarkation" and only mentions "overstaying" once and "overstayers" once. It mentions "skill" (skills, skilled) 98 times, "skill shortages" 10 times and "recruitment difficulties" 13 times. It seems that "skill shortages" are being used as a means to promote immigration. If there are skill shortages this surely indicates a need for training rather than immigration.

Should not a paper entitled "Secure Borders" be more concerned with embarkation and overstaying than with skills and recruitment difficulties? Citizens of the UK are concerned with secure borders, rather than skill shortages.

In a pamphlet Too Much of a Good Thing ^x Peter Lilley gives a list of ways in which immigration controls have been eased:

"The Government has systematically made immigration easier.

Since 1997 the Labour Government has:

- promised to give a decision on a work permit within 24 hours in 90% of cases removing the possibility of any serious examination of the application;

- more than trebled the number of work permits issued annually from 47,000 in 1997 to 156,000 in 2004;

- abolished the ‘primary purpose rule’ making it easier to bring in spouses and fiancé(e)s;

- enabled several categories of students to apply for jobs in the UK at the end of their courses without returning home as previously required;

- allowed anyone with sufficient points to enter the UK to look for work without being sponsored by an employer under the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP);

- increased uptake of the HSMP by reducing the points threshold since when the administration has been overwhelmed;

- introduced two new quotas for low skilled workers 9,000 for Hospitality and 6,000 for Food Processing;

- extended the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) all year round;

- changed the SAWS quota from 10,000 in the 1990s to 25,000 in 2003. Half that quota was filled from states which are now EU members. Their citizens are now not included in the quota which has been reduced to 16,250, thereby effectively increasing the number available to workers from outside the enlarged EU;

- promoted the Holiday Workers Scheme, which was designed for the old Dominions, to New Commonwealth countries; and allowed participants to switch into work permit employment;

- changed the default position for many categories of applicant from ‘refuse unless they can prove a good case’ to ‘accept unless it can be shown that they are ineligible’. Hence the revelation that the Home Office were allowing in wholesale applicants from pre-accession countries who did not provide adequate documentation. Failure to provide the information necessary to decide whether they met the official criteria meant they were given the benefit of the doubt;

- Britain was the only major EU member that did not invoke restrictions on nationals of the new member states resulting in 130,000 workers registering for work here between May and December 2004.

To this list can be added the scrapping of embarkation controls by Jack Straw in March 1998. They had already been scrapped for people travelling to the EU in 1994.^x

The Consultation Paper says:

"All the main political parties .. agree that migration is vital for our economy."

Where does the Conservative Party say that? It says:

"We will introduce legislation to require employers to put down bonds, equivalent to six month's remuneration, which will only be repayable once the permit holder has left." ^x

"Restrict severely the numbers coming to live permanently or to work in the United Kingdom." ^x

Its 2005 Manifesto says:

"We will set an overall annual limit on the numbers coming to Britain."

According to National Statistics:

"In 2004 an estimated 223,000 more people migrated to the UK than migrated abroad. This estimated net inflow is 72,000 higher than the previous year and is the highest since the present method of estimation began in 1991." ^x

"Question 1: Do you agree that the benefits of migration outweigh its costs?" is vague. "Migration" could be within the UK or EU, whereas "managed migration" only applies to people from outside the EU. More specific is: "Do you agree that the number of work permits issued per annum should be, or should have been, increased from 22,000 (in 1993) to 181,000 (in 2004 ^x)." But then there was, and is, no such consultation about the increase in the number of work permits.

The Consultation Paper says:

"Public concern is frequently generated by the perception that the system is not sufficiently managed or controlled." (3.13)

The word "frequently" should be replaced by "especially". The public are concerned about total numbers however well controlled.

Polly Toynbee writing in the Guardian ^* says:

"Britain's and America's enthusiasm for 'liberal' migration policy springs not from generosity to foreigners but from the other kind of 'liberal' sentiments - the free-market buccaneering way to undercut wages. ..

The Financial Times castigated the rest of Europe this week for keeping out cheap migrant labour. 'Open the doors,' it commanded France and Germany. 'If companies based in Europe are to compete globally they need flexible access to labour, including migrants.'

Flexible is a polite word for low pay. In service industries, this has nothing to do with global competition." ^x

* 19th August 2005. The article in the Financial Times was on 17th August.

The White Paper mentions "global" or "globalisation" 35 times, such as:

"developing managed migration policies to attract the people we need to compete and prosper in the global economy." (38)

Do we need "to attract people to compete in the global economy"? There has been a decline in the workforce working in manufacturing and an increase in employment in the public sector. This suggests that we need less people to help us "compete in the global economy" rather than more. A problem with globalisation is that it spreads global problems, such as employers recruiting people from abroad to work for them rather than employing the local population.

Polly Toynbee writes for example:

" The Gate Gourmet saga lifts the lid on a business culture that freely exploits low-paid, migrant labour. .. You may not hear much more from the 670 sacked Gate Gourmet workers."

Gate Gourmet is a catering company. Peter Lilley MP said in the House of Commons debate on Wednesday, 23 March 2005 introducing his Immigration Control (Balanced Migration) Bill:

"Since this Government came to power, net immigration has trebled. Over the last six years, it has averaged 157,000 a year." ^x

"The government‘s measures have already generated a net inflow of 200,000 overseas workers per annum. Although the Chancellor pretends he is promoting an inflow of Highly Skilled Workers, that programme involves only 1,300 a year. Yet he is also introducing schemes to bring in 20,000 more lower skilled people in the hospitality and food processing industries." ^x

"Hospitality and food processing" is a category of Work Permit. It includes chefs and catering companies - like Gate Gourmet.

3. "Why is satisfying a basic human need (a reasonably secure longish term shelter) so difficult in this country?"

The White Paper says that the Home Office is working on the effects of migration:

"We also need to ensure that we properly anticipate, plan for and fund the consequences of migration on education, health, housing and transport providers. We are working closely across all the different departments concerned, and with the devolved administrations to ensure that these impacts are properly taken into account in planning for local service provision." (1.25)

So what has the Home Office been doing since 2002? Apparently not very much. "Impacts" in the White Paper has changed to "may be a number of potential impacts" in the Consultation Paper on Selective Admission and "little work has been done to quantity them":

"3.10 There may be a number of potential impacts from migration including on housing public services or congestion. Little work has been done to quantify them."

Question 8 asks:

"If managed migration were intended to meet non-economic objectives what would they be, and how would you measure them?"

A non-economic objective should be to reduce the pressure on housing resulting from immigration from outside to EU, as measured for example by the amount of homelessness, and the need for new housing. This is discussed on a separate website, ^x which gives a fuller quotation of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair:

"The housing shortage is not a function of immigration, the housing shortage is a function of not enough houses being built."

4.Numbers and proportions

The Consultation Paper says on page 1: "The UK has fewer migrants than many equivalent countries". This refers to the diagram The UK has a lower proportion of population that is foreign born. But this is a proportion rather than a total number. The proportion and total numbers in 13 European countries can be seen in Diagrams A and B, from the ONS publication Population Trends. ^x

The UK comes in the middle as a proportion, and has the second highest number of migrants after France.

5. Partnerships

The government believes in partnerships. For example the White Paper Partnership in Pensions was followed by a Green Paper. A government publication says:

"Government and industry are working in partnership to deliver public policy, for example in the recent Green Paper on pensions," ^x

"Industry" is "retail financial service industry". This is arguably what is wrong with government pensions policy. It is a partnership with the financial industry, as discussed on my website. ^x This partnership with the financial industry seems to extend to industry in general, such as:

"The Partners in Innovation scheme is a good example of how Government and industry are working in partnership to meet challenges and exploit opportunities." ^x

Another good example of such a partnership is apparently the Work Permit scheme. A problem with these government partnerships is that they may be at the expense of people who are not insiders, that is "stakeholders" in the partnership. They are stakeholder-driven.

Discussing the Railtrack court case, the Financial Times says:

"While there is huge scope for partnership between government and the private sector, this is generally best done on the basis of tightly defined contracts." (first leader, 15th October, 2005)

The Consultation Paper on Selective Admission refers to "stakeholders" without apparently defining exactly who they are, perhaps in the case of the proposed points-based system:

employers, migrants, employment agencies, "agencies and organisations delivering nationality, immigration and asylum services".

A long list of"stakeholders" to whom the Home Office has sent a copy of its Consultation Paper is given on its website. ^x The list seems to be entirely organisations rather than individuals. Stakeholders are insiders. There seems to be an insiders versus outsiders problem. Insiders benefit from the system. Whereas particular outsiders may or may not benefit. It seems that the responses will be unbalanced in favour of organisations. I expect an analysis of the responses will be published, in which case I hope they will be divided into those from individuals and those from organisations.

The White Paper and Consultation Paper are taking sides in favour of business. The Consultation Paper has a heading Case Study Finance Sector and the City of London, "The economic benefits of London's success are huge." They are not huge for the people involved in the numerous scandals: personal pensions mis-selling, precipice bonds, ^x mortgage endowments, the Equitable life fiasco and so on.

The Consultation Paper seems to assume that what is good for the economy is necessarily good for Britain: "Migration is vital for the economy." (1.2), "contributing to our economy" (3.6). I disagree. The economy can cause polution, objectionable buildings such as multi-story car parks, building on the green belt and so on.

There seems to be an endless pursuit of "growth", ^x meaning growth of the GDP rather than, for example, homelessness. GDP means goods and services including, for example: "Pensions - The worst investment of my life". ^x and many similar examples on my website. ^x Financial services is another area where the government and the public interest are constantly hoodwinked by industry. Peter Lilley said in his speech:

"The Prime Minister confuses growth in the size of the economy with growth in our standard of living." ^x

Whose standard of living? Polly Toynbee writes:

"Class-blind economics conveniently celebrates growth even when it enriches the well-off at the expense of the low-paid." ^x

Average standard of living is determined by investment per person. So that to increase the standard of living it is necessary to increase investment and/or decrease the number of people.

5.3 Stakeholder-driven

The second part of the managed migration system is employer-driven. It depends on job vacancies and employers asking for work permits. Indeed the Home Office has itself described Work Permits UK as "employer driven". ^x Steve Moxon puts it more forcibly:

"The whole thing is driven by demand from employers, no matter how inappropriate the requests may be." (page 57)

Trade unions seem certain to have an influence through the proposed Skills Advisory Body. I have misgivings about the involvement of trade unions such as Unison because of views such as: "The UK has more than half a million unfilled vacancies." ^x

The White Paper mentions "agencies and organisations delivering nationality, immigration and asylum services". It seems that the Work Permit system could almost be described as "organisation-driven", rather than "employer-driven".

6.1 "Most types of application were charged for."

Whoever is being regulated should not pay for their own regulation. The Financial Services Industry is paid for by the industry it regulates with unfortunate consequences discussed on my website ^x which result from the "self-regulation" of the industry. Unfortunate consequences arise for the same reason in the area of immigration controls. Steve Moxon, describing his work as a caseworker in the Managed Migration department of the Home Office, reports:

"The law I was supposedly working to implement had been lost sight of...

From last August most types of application were charged for, so stress was placed on our being a customer service organisation, with tight deadlines for decision making...

On the face of it we were making some money for the Treasury - at least paying our own way - but of course the long-term costs of failing to apply immigration rules properly render this immediate gain in comparison insignifcant. Charging completed the destruction of the gate-keeping function. Under the ethos of the political Left's international open door, the accent was all on the applicants rights and our responsibility to uphold them, instead of whether or not the applicant should be allowed in.

Fostering a lack of proper consideration was at the core of management strategy, with targets set for the numbers of daily decisions a caseworker should make." (page 114-115)

Employers and migrants are described in the Consultation Paper as "customers". The Financial Services Authority, for example, does not refer to the firms which it regulates as "customers". Steve Moxon said

"Stress was placed on our being a customer service organisation with tight deadlines for decision making."

There is the proposal to have an auction of Tier 2 work permits:

"Employers would bid on a monthly basis with the highest bids securing permits." (page 25)

This will no doubt be good for business. But why restrict the auction to Tier 2? It would surely be more profitable to auction all five Tiers. Managed Migration should surely be concerned with regulating employment agencies, rather than itself being an employment agency.

This relates to "Question 4. Should the users of the system or the taxpayer or both bear the costs of the migration system." To which my answer is the taxpayer.

6.2 "The Government took the bait hook line and sinker."

I became interested in the topic of work permits as the result of working as a contractor in the computer industry, and a company near where I live laid off computer staff replacing them by contractors from India: ^x

"The Government was told by the representatives of IT employers, and by IT consultancies, that there was a massive skills shortage in IT. The data used is now discredited, but the Government took the bait hook line and sinker. So much so that Patricia Hewitt went to India and told them that there was a shortage of 300,000 IT workers in the UK.

The Government decided to create a Fast Track Visa system where non-EU workers who had skills on the Skills Shortage list were allowed to get Work Permits to work in the UK. Employers didn’t have to advertise these jobs. If a non-EU IT worker had skills which matched those on the Skills Shortage list, then they could bring them over pronto.

What skills were on this list?

Why, skills like C++, Java, and 'Business Analysts across all technical areas'.

After much protest, this was abolished and all IT skills were wiped from the Skills Shortage list, and e-commerce minister Stephen Timms told the Bangalore Trade Fair that 'there was no longer a shortage of IT skills in the UK'.

In the two years that this was in place, Work Permits were issued under the tier-1 fast Track Visa scheme at the rate of more than 11,000 a year, adding more than 20,000 to the UK IT workforce in the middle of THE biggest downturn in our industry’s history." ^{x x}

"'Computer services' and 'health medical services' accounted for a large proportion of the permits issued - 20% and 23% respectively. The high proportion of permits issued reflects the high growth of skill shortages in these areas." (3.10)

The Home Office was claiming there were skill shortages where none existed. In the same year 2002, computer services were taken off the skill shortage list following campaigning by the Professional Contractors Group.

"On 21 August 2002, after a year of leading the campaign to have the work permits system overhauled, the PCG convinced the Government to remove all 'shortage occupations' from the IT skills shortage list." ^x

Thus the Home Office was under a misapprehension about the shortage of computer skills. Whether or not there is a shortage as defined by the shortage list seems to depend on whether the particular skill has an effective lobbying organisation like PCG. Steve Moxon asks:

"What happens when the types of occupations for which there is a shortage changes? This happened with IT professionals. A 'shortage' caregory until 2002, IT is so sharply cyclical that within a short space of time the demand can turn negative. It makes no sense whatsoever to attract migrants into such a field when the indigenous workers can expect to experience imminent redundancy." (page 56)

Having worked in the industry, I know there never was a shortage. The government was hoodwinked. The criticisms of Steve Moxon of the Work Permit system are comprehensive:

"Supposedly Work Permit applications must be in respect of a job for which there are no suitable resident workers available, but this is now ignored regarding all of the supposed 'shortage' occupations, engineers (for which there is serious unemployment in Sheffield) actuaries, teachers, vets and healthcare professionals and, until 2002, IT professionals." (page 56)

6.3 "Open to abuse on a massive scale"

According to the current consultation there is "in-country compliance checking". But Steve Moxon says in his book that there is "little or no" such checking:

"Work Permits is open to abuse on a massive scale. There is little or no checking up on what people actually do after arrival; whether they take up the job on offer or change from the job they are supposed to be doing to something entirely different." (page 56)

"The going rate for the job" is often not well defined:

"The condition that Work Permits must be in respect of jobs paying the going rate for the job can easily be circumvented in spirit if not by the letter, and again, nobody is doing any checking." (page 57)

According to Steve Moxon there is illegal switching:

"Of the 145,351 Work Permits issued in 2003, 73,866 were 'permissions' given to foreign nationals already in the UK in another immigration category: ^x they had 'switched' from short-term tourist or student visas, despite the regulations forbidding this." (page 57)

He says: "The Home Office tried to pass off the figures as renewals.". He has three more general problems:

"The Work Permits system is an abuse three times over: it absolves employers from bothering to train people and so leaves British workers unskilled; it repeats across the economy the fatal error made in colluding with textile mill owners to forestall needed investment, thereby perpetuating lowskilled work at ever lower wages and in decreasing numbers; and it is an open door to yet another permanent settlement route for the less interested in contributing skills than in accepting the economic security of the UK taxpayer." (page 57)

Workers compete for jobs. Where there is mobility of labour between countries they have to do so internationally. The Home Secretary, David Blunkett MP said:

"We will have a doubling of the number of visas for work permits given in the year ahead to 175,000 - the largest number in Europe, six times the number of work permits granted in Germany this year."
(speech 7th October 2002 ^x)

Apparently Germany and the rest of Europe do not think they are competing, since they are issuing far fewer work permits. So which other countries we competing with? Do we really need to issue so many more than other European countries? Some migration is necessary such as for some specialist staff of international companies. In my opinion 175,000 is too high.

My answer to "Question 2: Can a managed migration system be used to deliver to the UK the workers it needs?" is no, we have enough workers in the UK and EU already and do not need any more.

Companies have a natural tendency to say they have shortages. They are always on the lookout for people who can help them expand their business such as: "We have a vacancy for 100 salesmen who have the ability to sell our products." Shortages can also result from poor pay and conditions, or shortage of housing.

The claim by employers and governments that there are skill shortages when none exist is a global phenomenon. See for example the article: "Enron and the H-1B American Worker Replacement Program". ^x Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage, by Dr Norman Matloff starts:

"Due to an extensive public relations campaign orchestrated by an industry trade organization, the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), a rash of newspaper articles have been appearing since early 1997, claiming desperate labor shortages in the information-technology field. . . . Software employers, large or small, across the nation, concede that they receive huge numbers of re'sume's but reject most of them without even an interview. One does not have to be a 'techie' to see the contradiction here." ^x

Employers are continually saying that there is a labour shortage or skill shortage, and that they are competing for labour, when in fact it is the other way round, workers are competing for jobs.

6.4 Points-based managed migration

The proposed points-based system for managed migration seems to me to be a system for almost stealing the most economically valuable people from other countries. The Consultation Paper gives an example:

"Karato is a 40 year old electrical engineer. He does not have a job offer. The system would aim to give him entry under Tier 1 and a route to settlement."

Why should we accept electrical engineers from Japan? He will be allowed into the country without a job with a view to settlement! This works both ways. The White Paper says:

" The UK is competing for highly skilled workers with other countries." (3.15)

This is joining with employers in saying: "We are competing for workers." It implies a general free-for-all, with other countries trying to take our highly skilled workers. It would surely be more efficient if all countries do not try to take each others highly skilled workers. And not only the most highly skilled workers, Steve Moxon asks:

"About 5,000 Work Permits granted annually are for chefs, and 2,000 are for other workers in hotel catering. Is the Government really saying that we need to import such workers?" (page 56)

Polly Toynbee says for example:

"43.5% of nurses recruited by the NHS since 1999 come from outside the UK. What if that were banned? The NHS in London would find clever ways to recruit from the city's mass of underqualified boys and girls, single mothers and other non-workers." ^x

The proposed points-based system says in effect that once you have accumulated sufficient points you will probably not be working locally but will instead join a global labour market and perhaps also an auction - "By auctioning permits we could expose and capture the economic value of permits." (page 25). You should be encouraged to stay in the country in which you were born instead of turning your back on your own country and going to live somewhere else.

According to Question 11 points are awarded according to: "age, English language proficiency, job offer, previous salary, work experience, skills/qualifications." and respondents can suggest further attributes for which points should be awarded.

Job seekers are notorious for exaggeration. If you researched the topic you might find that Karato did not have a salary but was actually self-employed working as a contractor and made £70,000 (depending on the rate of exchange) over the last three years.

The number of points you accumulate defines your Tier. This seems to be introducing a new kind of class distinction which might be called tierism. If you are a:

Tier 1 "highly skilled". The world is your oyster. Because you "contribute to growth and productivity", you can move to another country and seek work without first having a job offer.

Tier 2 "skilled". To get a work permit you need a job offer before entering a country to work.

Tier 3 "low skill", only a "limited number" to "fill shortages".

Tier 4 students.

Tier 5 "temporary categories" such as "cultural exchanges".

A problem I have with this consultation is the definition of "labour shortage", whether or not "identified by a Skills Advisory Body". This makes for example question "14. Should employers be able to access migrant labour for non-shortage occupations?" incomprehensible. Employers may have difficulty filling vacancies for all sorts of reasons such as shortage of housing, the skills required are too specialised, inadequate pay being offered. The term "labour shortage" lacks sufficient precision to be able to answer the questions.

The TUC is in favour of a points-based system because it "could give workers an effective right to switch jobs":

"A work permit ties an employee to a particular employer, and means that in practice the employee is powerless to protest about exploitation as if they lose their job they risk deportation. A points system could give workers an effective right to switch employer. We will press for this to be made clear. This could end much of the effective forced labour of legal workers." ^x

The Consultation Paper does not say that people in Tiers 2 and 3 will be able to switch jobs. It says:

"The key tests for the system are that it should be operable, robust, objective, flexible, cost effective, transparent, usable and compatible with EU and international legislation."

Question 9 asks how these should be ranked: "Please number them below 1-8":

"OPERABILITY, ROBUSTNESS, OBJECTIVITY, FLEXIBIITY, COST EFFECTIVENESS, TRANSPARENCY, USABILITY, COMPATIBILITY".

It does not explain in Question 9 that "compatibility" means "with EU and international legislation". What about UK legislation? Steve Moxon said: "The law I was supposedly working to implement had been lost sight of." ^x He calls managed migration a "classic oxymoron". He says that Home Office caseworkers are greatly over-worked, implying a need for more resources. In his book he says:

"The first difficulty British immigration officers face is the sheer lack of numbers and resources." (page 9)

This is suggested also by The Lunar House Enquiry (2005) ^x of The South London Citizens organisation. ^x It says for example:

"Stress in the workplace is universally perceived as a major problem." (5.025)

The current consultation reflects the government's approach to other areas such as financial services. There are things wrong with the system so that it needs to be "reformed". But this may not be possible. We should instead move away from the system altogether.

The Consultation Paper does not mentions "overstayers" but it does mention "electronic embarkation check" (1.10). This will reintroduce embarkation controls: "embarkation controls were removed in the mid-1990s".

The Consultation Paper says:

"We cannot fill our many job vacancies from the domestic market alone." (1.3)

The Consultation Paper does not suggests any caps, limits or quotas for its managed migration tiers, either individually for each tier, or overall for all the tiers combined. David Blunkett, said:

"But we need legal migrant workers to help fill the 600,000 vacancies in the UK labour market, particularly in sectors which are experiencing recruitment difficulties." ^x

If someone resigns this creates a vacancy until a replacement is found. 600,000 vacancies is only 2% of 30 million employees. This implies that jobs are vacant on average for one week per annum. They certainly seem to be vacant for longer than this on average.

Employer-driven migration in the past is contributing to unemployment such as:

"In 2002/03, men from Bangladeshi and Mixed ethnic backgrounds had the highest unemployment rates in Great Britain, at 18 per cent and 17 per cent respectively. The next highest male rates were among Black Africans (15 per cent), Pakistanis (14 per cent) and Black Caribbeans (13 per cent). These rates were around three times the rate for White British men (5 per cent)." ^x

6.5 H-1B visas in the US

H-1B visas in the US are mentioned with approval in the White Paper: "enabling highly skilled foreign workers to fill labour market shortages" (Annex C2). But they are highly contentious. There are anti-H-1B websites, ^{x x} even class action suits:

"This battle will not be won at the polls. This war will be won in the courts. .. H-1B is being used illegally to manipulate the market," ^x

Discussions on the web:

"Our jobs have been put on the world auction block. This has been facilitated through the H-1B visa. If you read the H-1B visa laws, you will see that these were written with absolutely no regard for the American IT worker or engineer. It's as if these H1-B laws were written by corporate lawyers for corporations - not 'by the people for the people'." ^x

"Today, more than ever, our jobs (tech jobs, etc) are being lost to 'temporary' foreign workers. These people have taken our jobs while Big Business and the current Presidential administration sit back and continue to tell us that more foreigners are needed because there are not enough 'qualified' U.S. workers around to fill the tech positions. .. Under the H-1B program, this year alone, 200,000 foreign workers are expected to arrive in the United States, many for software or other technology jobs in corporations that maintain they otherwise would face a critical personnel shortage." ^x

The Consultation Paper says:

"Most of the evidence from the UK, US and Europe suggests that migration has little or no impact on the employment and wage rates of the resident population workforce, positive or negative." (3.4)

Polly Toynbee does not agree. She says: "Labour is using foreign workers to deny everyone a living wage." ^x And for example:

"My previous employer began a cost cutting program and eliminated 40% of it's technical workers. I was one of them. The company then hired 14 H-1B visa workers to fill in for the laid off full time American workers. They even had the balls to ask me if I would come in and train the H-1B visa workers on systems architecture and network design!" ^x

In the US, as in the UK, there are vested interests claiming skill shortages where in fact none exist.

"In late 2002, a leading lobbyist for the National Association of Manufacturers, responding to criticism that shortage claims cannot be supported by credible evidence, put the matter succinctly: 'We can’t drop our best selling point to corporations,' he explained." ^x

"A 'sky-is-falling' forecast of shortages of scientists and engineers played a major role in Congress's nearly three-fold increase in the cap on employment-based permanent visas in the immigration Act of 1990. Unfortunately the projections proved technically inept and, for the most part, quite wrong." ^x

7. Proposals for an independent body

The Consultation Paper is a consultation about what Managed Migration should be doing. If an organisation consults about what it should be doing, it will tend to say: "We are doing a magnificent job at present, and are sure to do so in the future. Indeed in the future we will have a system which is: operable, robust, objective, flexible, cost effective, transparent, usable and compatible with international legal requirements." There need to be details about what exactly is happening at present like those of Steve Moxon in his book. He describes a suggestion of Mark Oaten MP:

"An independent agency should be set up to process the whole of immigration casework." (page 57)

This does not seem realistic, but perhaps such an agency could perform consultations such as the current one about managed migration. There seem to me to be so many problems with the current consultation that in my opinion there should be a fresh start.

John Horam MP recommended that an independent body should be established to look at migration statistics:

"We need an independent body that reports to a Select Committee of this House, for example, and which is therefore able to make totally impartial judgments on the nature of such statistics and when they should be produced." ^x

Perhaps an independent body such as an inspectorate could be established with wider duties for the Immigration and Nationality Directorate. Whether such a body can be truly "independent" and "totally impartial" seems unlikely. Perhaps the National Audit Office should have extended powers to inspect the Home Office? Discussing a NAO report Steve Moxon says:

"For once the Government had to contend with a report from a body independent of the Home Office." (page 94)

8. Conclusion

In my opinion we do not have sufficient housing for the considerable migration from outside the EU promoted by the system of managed migration. The availability of housing is not discussed in the Consultation Paper.

There is no discussion in the Consultation Paper of how many, or how likely it is, that migrants from outside EU return home, according to which country they come from. This is surely an important consideration. The proposed points-based system seems unworkable especially because there are too many opportunities for abuse. The existing points-based system for the Highly Skilled Migrants scheme has been criticised:

"With processing times currently running at more than six months, many potentially valuable applicants will feel that the process is too lengthy and bureaucratic. The answer is not to increase the eligibility criteria to reduce the total number of applications received, but rather to recruit, train and retain sufficient staff at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate in Sheffield to keep pace with the volume of applications." ^x

This reported delay of more than six months seems reasonable if it is being used to check that applicants are telling the truth on the application forms about their qualifications, previous income and work experience. ^x This certainly needs to be checked and in my opinion makes a points-based system unworkable.

In conclusion, the managed migration scheme is apparently part of government policy to encourage immigration. It is trying to solve the resulting housing shortage by concreting over the Green Belt.

This website started in May 2002 in order to put on the web my submission to the consultation on the White Paper, and the response from Work Permits UK. ^x

July 2005

E-mail: centre@boltblue.com